O Sand in Taufers – model energy supplier - MeWa Recycling ...

NEWS
March 2011
South Korea:
MeWa plant
recycles tyre wire
>>> from page 2
Newsletter for customers and employees
Topics:
Berlin:
QZ sorts mixed plastic
and metal waste
>>> Page 4
Greece:
Biodiesel from
out-of-date food
>>> Page 7
Salzburg:
Electric scrap recyclers
visit MeWa plants
>>> Page 8

2
Ölfilter-Recycling
Tyre wire cleaner
MeWa supplies
recycling line for scrap
tyres to South Korea
All over the world, ginseng is valued as a medical cure-all and
great fount of energy. A short while ago a MeWa plant was set
up in Geumsan, the home of ginseng, and is now recycling used
tyres ready for pyrolysis. At this site shredding technology from
Gechingen in Germany can now prove its own powers.
Congratulation on the new recycling plant: Andy Kim (Anothen WTE), Frank Gröschl, Elmar Kniesel (both MeWa) and Jinhwan Kim
hope to continue the good business relationship.
In Geumsan/South Korea there is even
a monument in honour of ginseng.
MeWa-News March 2011
The UNI-CUT ® SP tyre wire cleaner in use.
T
he Geumsan region in South Korea
is famous for growing, producing
and trading in ginseng.
In the home country of the famous
health-giving root, shredding technology
from Gechingen in Germany can now
prove its own powers. By locating in Geumsan,
tyre recyclers Anothen WTE have
placed their business in direct proximity to
partners who produce moulding bladders
for the tyre industry. The elastic bladders
are used by a nearby tyre manufacturer in
the production of new tyres.
Anothen WTE delivers process steam
from the own pyrolysis plant to this production
plant for moulding bladders. For
this purpose MeWa installed a new
recycling line in Geumsan
in January 2011, which
for the first time in
Asia, incorporates a
process that can even
recycle all the steel
cord from the tyre
beads to a high
quality standard.
The used tyres are first
pre-shredded before being fed into the
MeWa UG 1600 granulator. Anothen WTE
then feeds the granulated rubber directly
into its own pyrolysis plant.
MeWa-News March 2011
However, ten to twenty per cent of
the weight of a used car tyre is made up
of steel. It is in the form of wire cord embedded
in the bead of the tyre and cannot
be processed by pyrolysis. Therefore,
a magnet above the conveyor belt removes
the steel cord from the process as it is
conveyed from the granulator. The steel is
in a very „impure“ condition at that point,
however. The mixture is still made up of
rubber and fabric adhering to the wire
cord. Suitable neither for pyrolysis nor for
recycling at a steelworks, this mixture of
materials had represented an unsolved
problem for Anothen WTE.
UNI-CUT ® SP Tyre wire cleaner
Over the past two years, MeWa has set
about tackling the problem of the contaminated
steel cord
and developed the
UNI-CUT ® SP
tyre wire cleaner,
a special machine
capable
of almost completelyseparating
rubber
residues from
the wires.
The tyre wire cleaner combines the advantages
of a low-wear mill with the dynamic
properties of a granulator. Without
using delicate blades, the machine strips
Tyre wire cleaner
the rubber off the steel cord by rubbing
it against the stator shaft, thereby separating
out the individual fractions. At the
end, the wire emerges with a purity of
greater than 98% in a quality that can be
used in steel melt shops.
High-purity steel cord
The rubber, on the other hand, is fed
back into the original material flow and
onto the pyrolysis stage. The pyrolysis plant
produces carbon black, oil and gas from
the scrap tyre granulate. With these fuels
Anothen WTE produces process steam and
delivers it to the neighbouring production
plant for the moulding bladders.
The tyre wire cleaner is designed to
process around one tonne per hour. To
be able to operate the plant at full capacity,
Anothen WTE also buys in steel cord
waste from other tyre recycling plants in
South Korea.
High performance goes with the territory
in the land of ginseng. ■
Ginseng
In its Asian homeland, ginseng
is considered a universal curative. It
has been valued for its all-round healing
powers for thousands of years.
It is thought to help reduce stress,
strengthen immunity and have rejuvenating
and life-extending effects. Because
of its world-wide popularity, the
plant is now also cultivated in China,
Russia and the USA.
3

4
Metal cleaning
MeWa QZ cleans mixed metal
and plastic waste
Berlin business recycles metal separator fraction
GRUNSKE Metall-Recycling GmbH & Co. KG in Oranienburg
recently commissioned a new plant for cleaning metals that have
already run through sorting systems for domestic and industrial
waste. Using a Querstromzerspaner, the company is able to operate
a highly efficient system producing ferrous fractions with a high
level of homogeneity.
Based in the North of Berlin, the recycling
company Grunske has been
handling metal separator waste
from mechanical and biological recycling
facilities, bulky household item recyclers
and waste sorting plants for many years.
In such plants, the metals are removed
from the process by magnetic separators
at a very early stage in order to protect the
equipment used in the subsequent phases
against excessive wear. But plastics and
fabrics get easily caught on the pieces of
wire and sharp-edged metal and are so
extracted from the material flow along
Oranienburg
with the metals. On average, the metal
component of the mixed waste supplied
is about 60 to 70%. Visually, the relatively
high metal content of the material is not
obvious at all. Which explains why it generally
has little attraction for metal dealers
and steelworks.
Company founder Klaus Grunske spotted
here a gap in the market and in MeWa
he found the ideal partner for making his
idea a reality. In the past, metal waste
mixed up with plastics could only be resold
at low prices, so Grunske‘s business
With a population of 30,000, the town of Oranienburg lies just 30 km north of
Germany‘s cosmopolitan capital, Berlin. Right in the city centre stands the Schloss
Oranienburg palace. Louise-Henriette of Orange had it built as a symbol of hope
immediately after the end of the Thirty Years War. The Electoral Princess established
model farms, dairies and social institutions such as the first orphanage in the
Brandenburg Marches. Her son, King Friedrich I, had special affection for Oranienburg.
He had his mother‘s palace opulently converted to create the first baroque
summer residence in the Brandenburg Marches.
set itself the task of finding suitable technology
to be able to effectively sort the
material in-house. The aim was to „clean“
the metal scrap. In other words, to separate
the ferrous and non-ferrous components
from the mixture of materials and
recover them in extensively homogeneous
form.
QZ with many advantages
For the past four years MeWa has done
pioneering work in the metal waste separation
sector, developing an improved version
of the patented Querstromzerspaner
(QZ) precisely for this application. The machine
enables mixed materials to be efficiently
separated with minimal wear to the
equipment and was literally tailor-made
for Grunske‘s requirements profile. „The
QZ has clear advantages to other types of
machines and plant solutions,“ states Axel
Sievers, special scrap division manager at
Grunske, in explanation of the reason for
the innovative concept. „It has no problem
handling even heavy metal parts. Whereas
a scrap mill would jam if large solid pieces
were fed in.“
The separated pieces of material exit
the machine via an outlet after only a few
seconds. Even large solid items such as
steel beams or guide rollers are no problem.
Low machine wear, straightforward
maintenance and the quality of the output
have ensured extremely efficient operation
of the recycling plant in Oranienburg
since the end of 2010.
As a safeguard against hazardous materials
such as pressurised spray cans, a
gas detection unit permanently monitors
the inside of the machine and explosion
protection has been integrated for emer-
MeWa-News March 2011
Centrepiece of the
metal separation process:
the MeWa QZ 2000
Querstromzerspaner
MeWa-News März 2011
Looks like plastic waste
but is 65 % metal.
Metal cleaning
gencies. After leaving the QZ, the material
is carried to a wind sifter by a conveyor.
First of all, the light materials are separated
from the rest. Finally, an overband magnet
picks the ferrous component out of
the mixture. What is left is the coarse material
and the non-ferrous fraction, which
are removed by a cyclonic separator.
At the end of the building, a continuous
flow of steel scrap and non-ferrous metals
which is separated to an efficiency of
98 % leaves the conveyor belt. The steel
industry needs feeding continuously. ■
MeWa-News
Imprint
Issued by:
MeWa Recycling Maschinen
und Anlagenbau GmbH
Gültlinger Straße 3, 75391 Gechingen
Editor: Harald Pandl
Tel. 0049 (0)7056 925-0
E-mail: info@mewa-recycling.com
Internet: www.mewa-recycling.com
Design: MeWa in collaboration with
Creativ-Werbung M. Dostal, Tiefenbronn
Printing: Druckhaus Weber, Althengstett
Pictures: MeWa, H. Seeber, Ferienregion
Tauferer Ahrntal, Stadt Salzburg,
Wikipedia, Google earth
Front picture: Tyre recycling South Korea
5

6
Bio-QZ Bio-QZ
Sand in Taufers –
model energy supplier
The community of Sand in Taufers
Managing director Paul Prenn.
in the Italian South Tyrol has set
itself the target of eliminating the CO2 emissions of its population.
A decisive factor in achieving that aim is renewable energy.
Sand in Taufers and its 5,300 inhabitants
are forging ambitious plans.
Local government and citizens are
collectively engaging in numerous projects
aimed at permanently reducing the carbon
footprint of their community. They rely on
energy-efficient structures and buildings
and consistent use of renewable energy.
The village now employs the entire
spectrum of alternative energy sources to
provide eco-friendly electricity and heat.
A wind turbine has been erected as well
as several photovoltaic solar arrays, hydro-electric
plants and a biomass district
heating plant that runs on locally sourced
wood.
Very early on, the local farmers joined
together to set up a biogas plant that produces
910 kW of electrical energy. When
first completed in 2002, it was the first
co-operatively organised biogas plant in
South Tyrol. The 50 or more farmers involved
run the plant almost entirely on cow
dung and slurry from their own herds.
Bio-QZ processes cow dung
And now the plant has been modernised
and substantially extended. To be
able to condition the dung better for fermentation,
a MeWa Querstromzerspaner
(Bio-QZ) has been integrated in the process.
From now on, Paul Prenn, managing
director of the Genossenschaft
Biowatt Taufers cooperative
will feed around
70 tonnes of the demanding
substrate into the digesters.
With the aid of the Bio-
QZ, a compatible infeed
system, a new generator
and another digester, the
co-operative can produce
an extra 999 kWh of
electricity and 600 kWh
of heat. That energy is
either fed into the electrical
power grid or supplied
to the local district heating
plant respectively.
Cattles play a major role
in the energy supply
of Sand in Taufers.
Exemplary energy community
In that way, the methane-rich animal
droppings are converted into green energy
and the community of Sand in Taufers
in the heart of the Italian Alps has taken a
large stride towards becoming „an exemplary
CO 2-free energy community“. ■
MeWa-News March 2011
Biodiesel from out-of-date
food
The ambitious aspiration of the company Néa
Anakiklosi in Greece is to make biodiesel out
of food that has passed its sell-by date. Using
a Bio-QZ supplied by MeWa and a subsequent
press-compacting stage, the food packaging
is opened up and cleanly separated from the
high-fat-content organic matter.
One glance at the sell-by date is enough
to still the hunger pangs.
The packets of crisps, chocolate
bars, packets of biscuits, chocolate eggs,
drinks in cartons and cans, pots of yoghurt,
packets of butter or frozen pizzas are no
longer suitable for consumption.
But they still seem as appetising as ever
to the green colossus in the shady factory
shed. The MeWa Querstromzerspaner
gulps them down into its bulbous belly by
the pallet-load. Packaging and all.
About one hour‘s drive by car to the
north of Athens, the Biocompost Group
company Néa Anakiklosi recently started
operating a pioneering recycling process
for out-of-date foodstuffs. The energy-rich
foods contain large amounts of animal and
MeWa-News March 2011
Compacted packaging.
vegetable fats and so form an ideal basis
for producing biodiesel.
QZ opens up the packaging
The MeWa QZ 1200 specially designed
for handling biomass can do in this plant
what it can do best. In a single operation,
Left to right: regional sales manager
Björn Hötger, MeWa sales agents in Greece
Dimitris Kanakopoulos and Dimitrios Melissourgos,
and plant operator Charalampos Migiadis.
the Bio-QZ opens up the packaging and
works the contents into a homogenous
mass. Hot process water is added so that
the fatty foods are quickly separated from
the plastic packaging.
The mixture is washed again on the
outfeed auger so that solids and liquids
are separated. A press subsequently compacts
the packaging material for easier
loading and transport. The liquid organic
waste passes through a further sanitisation
stage before finally beeing collected
in large tanks.
Everyone gets what they diserve.
The QZ gets the out-of-date food and
the hungry holidaymakers in Greece the
olives and feta cheese on offer at the local
taverna. ■
7

Electrical MeWa scrap Intern convention
Electrical scrap recyclers visit MeWa plants
The recycling industry traditionally meets in January at the International Electronics
Recycling Congress (IERC). This year was the tenth anniversary. With
its fantastic winter scenery and favourable location, Salzburg has established
itself as the ideal meeting place for those in the business of recycling electrical
waste.
T
he picturesque backdrop of the
snow-covered Mozart metropolis
may have been a motive for more
than 450 delegates accepting the invitation
to Salzburg again in 2011. But there
were at least as many reasons to travel
to Austria from a business standpoint. Because
when national re-use and recycling
rates are published, the Alpine republic is
generally right at the top of the rankings.
Several ultramodern recycling plants operate
in the immediate catchment area of
the conference centre.
The EU Commission will shortly agree
on binding new higher collective targets
for electrical waste, while many other
countries also faces major challenges in
the recycling of electrical scrap. The stream
of used electrical equipment is growing
year on year and in many countries the
construction of a functioning infrastructure
is still in its infancy. One of the possible
solutions could be to export the European
standards for recycling technology
worldwide.
Refrigeration recycling in Kematen
The convention delegates were thus
taken on an extended tour of the recycling
facilities. The itinerary included two plants
erected by MeWa and considered pioneering
in their field with their use of QZ technology.
The refrigeration appliance recycling
facility operated by UFH RE-cycling in
Kematen is not only exemplary in ecological
terms. Since 2009 it has been returning
the best output results, high throughput
rates and economical figures.
8
Powerful partners: recycling entrepreneur
Harald Höpperger (right) and MeWa managing
director Helmut Oberguggenberger.
Hospitality in Innsbruck
In Innsbruck, recyclers Höpperger have
been running an electronic scrap plant
with an annual capacity of 17,000 tonnes
since 2005. There too, visitors were able
to see for themselves the high quality of
the output fractions that the MeWa QZ
2000 has been reliably producing since it
first went into operation.
Harald Höpperger not only provided
the technological highlight of the event
in the shape of his recycling facility. The
entrepreneur also offered convention attendees
traditional hospitality in a winter
wonderland setting. So another gathering
in Salzburg in 2012 is already a definite
date. ■
MeWa-News March 2011